The new Serie A season has been cancelled due to strike action by players in Italy's top flight. This follows the Italian Football League's refusal to sign the latest draft of a new collective agreement.
The Italian Players' Association (AIC) this week maintained it would strike for this weekend's opening set of Serie A fixtures if a new agreement was not agreed.
The Italian Players Union (AIC) confirmed the news on Friday morning after talks over a collective agreement regarding players' rights broke down.
AIC president Damiano Tommasi said: "There will be no Serie A this weekend. We tried right up until the end, but ultimately all the talks were in vain."
Italy's highest sporting authority has expressed its "profound disappointment" that the Serie A season will be delayed.
A statement from Italy's Olympic Committee read: "The CONI openly condemns the exasperating tones that have characterised the whole issue and expresses its profound disappointment on how the situation has evolved to become incomprehensible and unsustainable."
The dispute has rumbled on since the end of the 2009/10 season when a previous agreement expired.
